Nina: [00:00:00] Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. I am your host, Nina Badzin. I have been writing about friendship for over a decade, and I have not touched this topic much yet, a little bit, but not to this extent.

Today I have the podcast Duo behind Catie and Erik’s Infinite Quest and ADHD Adventure and co-authors of the brand new book, the ADHD field Guide for Adults. Cate Osborne and Erik Gude. This is an excellent book and resource for people who have ADHD have been diagnosed for a long time, are newly diagnosed, and also for the people who love them, for the friends, of course, that’s what we are focusing on on this podcast. But there is information in the book about romantic relationships and all kinds of relationships and all different elements of ADHD. We are going to focus on one area in particular that deals with friendships. But Cate [00:01:00] and Erik will also give a little bit of background.

Of course, a huge topic like ADHD cannot possibly be covered in every aspect in a 45 minute or so episode. That is why you could grab the book, which would be wonderful. It is out and ready to be purchased.

They’re so wonderful to talk to. Let’s get straight to it.

Welcome Cate and Erik to Dear Nina.

Cate and Erik: Hi, thanks so much for having us. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Nina: It’s so fun to have the two of you in one screen. It’s very rare that I get to do that, to have two guests in one screen. I have two guests, just not one screen.

Cate and Erik: We got a scooch. There’s a, yeah. There’s a lot of scooching happening. Yeah. Cate has her armchair up and mine is tuck tucked under hers.

Nina: You guys are so funny. So actually one thing I do want to start with because it is an interesting piece of your story, is how the two of you met

Cate and Erik: yeah, , COVID hit and we individually had nowhere to go. We didn’t know each other yet. We were thousands of miles away. I was a cook at the time. COVID hit. Cate was the, uh, entertainment director of the Georgia Renaissance Festival. renaissance festivals don’t generally do well in global pandemics.

Um, so suddenly we were [00:02:00] both stuck at home with nowhere to do and completely parallel, separate from each other. we both started getting really frustrated with our own ADHD, in our own homes. pre pandemic, it was really easy for a lot of people to assume that their ADHD was the result of some context that they were in.

You know, at work it affects me or, or at school it affects me, but at home, whatever. But suddenly you are just home alone with nowhere to go. for me, my ADHD started really having negative impacts on me. I would walk to one side of the room to start doing something and by the time I got halfway there, I would think of something else.

And then I would walk over there and by the time I got halfway there, I would think of something else. so I started making tiktoks about it, just about what that feels like. it resonated. People really liked it. a similar thing was happening to Cate at the same time. People started mentioning our names to each other, you know, like, Hey, do you know this @heygude guy. Hey, do you know this @catieosaurus?

Cate messaged me on TikTok on August 8th, 2020 that you know the date. Oh yeah, absolutely. we have this framed somewhere, um, Cate messaged me by the laws of ADHD TikTok we must do a collaboration. And so we [00:03:00] called each other to discuss a collab and we did not discuss the collab. We discussed, you did not everything else. so after like 10, five hour long phone calls where we didn’t get anything done, we were like, well we should probably start a podcast. Well, actually somebody on your live.

Yeah, yeah. I was on live and I was joking around about how somebody had said, oh, have you heard of this guy? @heygude. he makes the ADHD contact. And I was like, oh, it’s weird that you say that because I just got off the phone with him and somebody, and I wish, I wish to God that I had written down their name because I feel like I owe them my entire life.

they said, man, I would give anything to be a fly on a wall for that conversation. That must be so fun to listen to. So I kind of went to Erik and I was like, what if we started a podcast? and so we did, it was called Catie and Erik’s Infinite Quest. and then out of that, a few years later, the question was, raised Cate, would you ever like to write a book?

And I said, yes I would love to do that. and one of the things that I very quickly realized is that I had always been disappointed with most books about ADHD because they [00:04:00] are hard to read. They’re dense, they are often pandering and scientific at the same time. And I had just never really found one that hit for me.

in thinking about what I knew about Erik, we sort of live in parallel existences when it comes to ADHD. Erik was diagnosed very young, and he was a person who struggled in school, struggled with reading, that kind of thing. That was the exact opposite. I was the very sort of quintessential, fell through the cracks, late diagnosis, highly academically successful because I was putting all myself worse into being academically successful.

and we had such backwards yin and yang experiences. I thought, well, who better to ask to co-author this book because we wanted this book to be for everybody.

Nina: So I got to talk to you guys on the day of your book release, it’s very fresh. So this is a hard question, but has the reaction been what you hoped, you had this vision of that people would be able to have access to information in a different way than they have before with previous books?

Cate and Erik: we’ve gotten a ton of really great feedback [00:05:00] already, which has been really meaningful because most of the feedback that we’ve getting has been coming from our peers and people who are doing work in the ADHD broader neurodivergent space.

we’ve gotten a lot of compliments about the layout. Mm-hmm. We’ve gotten a lot of compliments about just kind of the approach and the accessibility of it. We’ve gotten a few comments around just the inclusivity and Topics that we chose to include. So, yeah, uh, we’ve gotten a lot of compliments

Nina: I am glad to be able to tell you as somebody who knows very little about the topic. I’m not someone who’s been immersed in the literature about ADHD so I’m like a good test for you. I didn’t have a lot of preconceived notions. And even though I talk about relationships and friendship a lot, because I’m not a therapist, and I say this a lot, any listener of this show knows I am a writer.

I’m a person who’s had a lot of focus on friendship and some ways I think I’ve stayed away from this topic. I’ve had an episode or two on Neurodivergence but I think I’ve tiptoe around this topic because I’ve been afraid to get it wrong. And yet I feel that there is a need out there. there’s [00:06:00] a lot of discussion about ADHD and Neurodivergence in general, people are struggling on both sides of this friendship equation. Either they themselves feel as you stay often in the book and well, that they feel they’re not being a good enough friend for a lot of reasons will get into, and then somebody who is friends with another person who has ADHD There’s a frustration that happens and it’s like, I love to just be real on this show and that’s why I’m so glad to have you guys to talk about. Okay. On both ends of that, how do we deal with that? I’m going to start with a quote from the book. This is on page 3 28 in Cate’s section. You said one of the biggest frustrations I have is a person with ADHD Is that everyone talks about how hard it is to make friends, but I never felt like I heard anyone talking about how hard it is to keep them. I’m amazing at making friends. I make friends at every single event and party I go to. I love meeting people. I love listening to their stories and what inspires them and motivates them, and I’m excited for a lifelong friendship only to realize a week [00:07:00] later that I forgot to text them back after the party if I even remember to get their number at all. Out of sight, out of mind feels appropriate when we’re talking about our keys or the moldy vegetables we forgot about in the fridge. It’s a lot less comfortable to acknowledge that for many people with ADHD, out of sight, out of mind applies to your grandma and your best friend.

I’m going to skip a little bit ahead. It’s easy to accuse someone with ADHD of not caring, of not being invested in the relationship of being a bad friend.

If they wanted to, they would in quotes. But I also know what it is like to live in my brain, how much I want to be a good friend, how much I try to be a good friend. But there is a whole lot of executive functioning involved in actually making this happen. I’m not a bad person or a bad friend for struggling to maintain friendships and neither are you. You say that so well, and then there is also, like you said, you don’t pander. There is a lot of like. Yes, you want to be a good friend, but then these things need to happen. What feels like gets in the way.

Cate and Erik: I think one of the most interesting things about living in a brain with in my case, both ADHD and [00:08:00] autism, is that we struggle with executive functioning, right? We struggle with working memory, we struggle with task initiation, task prioritization, task organization. a task can be something as simple as remembering to text your best friend.

And then on top of that, there are a lot of additional issues that come with living with ADHD, for example, things like rejection, sensitivity, imposter syndrome. People with ADHD tend to skew into lower scores around self-esteem, and relating to their peers already. then there are just communication differences.

The way that we tend to communicate can look different than the neurotypical person. when you combine all of that, I have felt for a long time there was just this hidden knowledge around how to be a good friend that I had just missed. You know, the sort of like how to be a human memo that we all get.

in writing this book, many of the questions that we got from our community, many of the sticking points when it comes to relationships, ’cause that’s the work that I do now, is around [00:09:00] relationships and intimacy and communication. cause I don’t know, you know, it’s like I just got so angry that I didn’t understand it, that I just devoted my entire life to talking about it. As one does. those tend to be the sticking points, those things around i’m trying to be a good friend. I want to be a good friend. I have this desire to be a good friend, but there is this mechanism in the way, how do I build systems? How do I build structures and to build assurances that I’m not going to run into those sticking points.

Nina: There’s a wonderful part just right after that I think, where you guys talk about being good cop, bad

Cate and Erik: Oh,

Nina: it’s related, right? I loved that. And it’s related to this and it’s a good place to go to Erik in a moment. It’s this idea that , you say it’s easy to just lean into that real friends will understand narrative.

And Erik, you’re kind of like, if a friend doesn’t understand, I mean, it was in the book and in a kind of, in a tongue in cheek way, like on, you know, we don’t swear on this show, but it was, forget them,

Cate and Erik: yeah.

Nina: and it, but it was a good balance. ’cause you’re right, there are some things that our friends should understand and then there are times when you gotta step up.

What does that look like for you?

Cate and Erik: The [00:10:00] book seeks to strike a balance between acceptance of yourself and the brain that you were given at birth, but also acknowledging that you have a responsibility to your own behavior. So the whole thing is trying to strike a balance between acceptance and accountability. And I think in a, the dynamic between , two friends, one has ADHD, the other does not. the most important thing for the person without ADHD to understand about the person with ADHD is when it comes to if they want to, they would, that is literally not the case for a person with ADHD.

just for your listeners, we’re going to probably use the term executive functions a lot in this interview. Mm-hmm.

Nina: let’s define it a little more

actually. I appreciate that.

Cate and Erik: your executive functions are the set of processes in your brain that decides what you should be doing at any given time. Your brain is capable of doing a staggering number of things.

It can write symphonies, it can get up and run a mile. It can like, I don’t know, cause you to get up and do a little dance. You can do a lot of different things at any given time. Your executive functions [00:11:00] decide what you actually do. They’re sort of like the conductor of your brain. They orchestrate everything and organize everything such that you can accomplish some task.

our executive functions don’t work the way other peoples do. We have what’s called executive dysfunction So a person with ADHD may consciously have every intention of calling you back of scheduling a, a fun play date this afternoon or whatever.

They may have every intention to, they may want to, but their brain is structured such that their wants does not always result in the occurrence of what that want is. that is something that we struggle with and it’s not our fault that we struggle with it, but we can de decide how we respond to it.

So I think the person without ADHD in this friendship, this hypothetical, not ADHD and ADHD person and friendship, the person without A-A-D-H-D should understand that the fact that this person struggles with that type of stuff is not their fault at all. At all. But the person [00:12:00] with ADHD needs to understand that it is correct, that it is not your fault, that you struggle with these things, you are still accountable for your behavior and you don’t want to hurt your friend.

At the end of the day, the secret ingredient is always patience, after 2020 there was a huge influx of ADHD conversation and content, because now we’re all alone in our houses and we’re dealing with it just alone. When that conversation erupted, there was this onslaught of just acceptance. Oh my gosh, we can talk about this without feeling bad. This is now part of acceptable conversation. That’s amazing. , And with that conversation, we started to expect patience from people, other things we used to just feel bad about, losing a train of thought during conversation or something. I think we started to feel entitled for other people to be patient with us.

And I think that is the case, but it’s important that we also have patience for neurotypicals who might be struggling to understand us.

Nina: You get at something just like that, that I, both of you, that I appreciate in the book a lot, there’s a lot of discussion about how your brain works, and accepting it and learning about it. What works with medication and what [00:13:00] doesn’t, and behaviors and systems. And sometimes it’s can be easy to forget that somebody who’s neurotypical is also dealing with a set of systems, is what I meant. And how they do their life and is also having to override certain things about themselves. it has to go both ways.

Cate and Erik: Yeah. And one of the things that I think is the most interesting around this conversation around relationships is that there are a lot of factors in play for everyone that have nothing to do with neurotype. Right? And a lot of that comes down to cultural beliefs, how we

were raised, community, strength of friendship, that kind of thing.

another one that I love talking about just because I think it is really interesting is economic status and how if you look at, the way that ADHD manifests in someone who has more economic privilege versus someone who does not. The person who may be struggling a little bit more is also struggling more with executive functioning, and they’re struggling more, in general when there is a lack of, money.

But the same is true [00:14:00] with somebody without ADHD, right? Like somebody who is going through it, who is dealing with a stressful time or in a stressful environment or may just not be succeeding in the ways that they want to, that is going to impact the way that they think about themselves, that is going to impact the way that they interact in friendships and show up for friendships and the amount of time that they have for friendships.

friendship is fluid and relationships are fluid. And there are some times where we really need to show up for somebody because they are having a bad time, the same way that we hope that those people will be able to show up for us. And so that reciprocity isn’t about score keeping or saying, well, I have more ADHD than you do.

And so therefore, this series of things can be ignored or overlooked. It’s about honestly looking at yourself, looking at your strengths, your weaknesses, and saying, okay, what do I need to do to be the best friend that I can? What do I need to bring to the table in order to [00:15:00] create meaningful and lasting relationships?

and that work is ongoing. that’s not read one book and then you’re done. That is a, lifelong process.

Nina: One of the areas I thought was really interesting to read about was conversation styles and how just that one little thing and that shows you how many details of a relationship can be feeling out of whack.

So interrupting is a great example.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Cate and Erik: Do you want to talk about interrupting? Yeah, sure. Actually. So I was, Hey,

Nina: That’s awesome. That’s great.

Cate and Erik: look at that. Hey, we got jokes. We got jokes. well, I think interrupting is a really good, solid concrete example of matching understanding with accountability.

the analogy I use is kind of silly, but I think it works. imagine if you had a disorder that caused you to compulsively and without warning, just slap people across the face a real abso like a real documented disorder that caused you to do that or feel the impulse to do that frequently. You still shouldn’t do that. You still shouldn’t slap people in the face. Now your friends hopefully will be [00:16:00] understanding of the fact that you have this disorder that causes you to slap people in the face, but there’s no version of that situation that pans out with it’s just okay that you slap people in the face all the time.

interrupting, somebody isn’t quite slapping somebody in the face, but it’s a similar thing. I think a person without ADHD should be patient in understanding that a person with ADHD has really no, uh, bodyguard at their mouth. There’s no check between, like, are you going to say that right now?

Okay, go for it. they should understand that, that it’s difficult to hold back sometimes. But the person with ADHD also needs to accept that it is rude to interrupt people.

So I think it’s really a balance between understanding that your brain is the way that it is, and it might cause you to want to behave in certain ways, but you also have accountability to that. You get to hover above your brain and choose what your body actually does, including interrupting people.

Nina: It’s a great concrete example and I, appreciate you sharing it. And Cate, you said something earlier, there is sometimes a cultural piece to that, there are cultures where it is more normal to interrupt and there are cultures where it’s very rude. And then we [00:17:00] all live in different places in between all of that.

And then there’s the impulse issue. I mean, it’s, it’s complicated

communication.

Cate and Erik: There is another one of your executive functions is self-monitoring. for some people they may struggle with that component and they may not realize that they are interrupting constantly. there is also the need for developing, again, that sort of sense of, awareness that am I always stepping on someone’s idea?

do I always need to contribute to the conversation? it’s funny because I also do a lot of work in theater and improv, especially in teaching kids how to like do theater and stuff. And so the thing that we talk about a lot in theater and improv is the principle of step up, step down.

Where it’s, you don’t always have to be the person who speaks in every single scene. I love that you have that many ideas and that’s so cool and that’s so awesome. But the same way that we want our ideas to be heard, we need to give other people space for their good ideas to be heard. that is a principle that applies to adult friendships the same way that it, uh, applies to little kid improv, but even [00:18:00] more interestingly, when we start looking at different relationships, sometimes communication style is also about difficult conversations and serious conversations. And so a lot of the work that I do is in the world of like sex and intimacy and that kind of thing.

and breaking down how you as a person like to receive information and have tough conversations can be really valuable because sometimes the want for a serious conversation is there. The need for a serious conversation of, Hey, have you noticed that you interrupt me constantly and it really does hurt my feelings?

And there is really a need for me to feel like I can say something without being constantly stepped on. But that can trigger the rejection sensitivity response that can trigger the, oh my God, all my friends hate me and I’m a terrible, bad person and I’m never going to have a good friend ever, ever.

learning how to receive that information, learning how to sit in the uncomfortable. That can be very challenging, especially again, with the emotional dysregulation component and the self-monitoring component. [00:19:00] But it’s really vital in order to develop healthy and lasting friendships, because sometimes there will be moments of tension, sometimes there will be moments of hurt.

learning how to repair and move through those is part of developing your friendship muscle.

Nina: It is so well said. you talked about in the book the Performing, which is right in this area too, I thought that was a good thing that really every person should ask themselves, am I having a conversation or am I performing?

Cate and Erik: so I coined the term Mrs. Masling,

Nina: it. Wrote it down in my notes, because I loved that show. I could picture, but you explain it. For the listeners who haven’t watched the show.

Cate and Erik: , There’s this one particular scene in Miss Maisel that just stuck with me. it’s where she’s like at a cocktail party. People are having kind of a good time and then she kind of turns it into an impromptu comedy performance.

And in the show it’s presented as this, oh my God, isn’t she so amazing and so great. She can just be funny wherever she is. And that’s so cool and so great. But there was part of me that looked at all of the [00:20:00] other people in the room who had been having conversations and who had been, hopefully having a good time at the party.

And I realized that I was very guilty of that. I had been the person who took up a lot of space in the room and I had, done so in not a way, that was my trying to build relationships and to get to know the other people. It was to show them how interesting I was. The phrase don’t be interesting, be interested.

we also put that in the book. ‘ that’s one of those things is that I think if you can make that shift from trying to be the most impressive, most funniest, best as bestest, smartest boy to what are the other people here about? what are the people around me interested in and how can I facilitate a meaningful, real relationship with that rather than thinking of it as a performance or, I have to impress these people in order to be accepted.

the more that you try to be impressive, I think the more, we also tend to lean into people pleasing and we tend to start to develop that ability to [00:21:00] chameleon and become just whoever we need to be in the moment. But that’s how we get really far away from ourselves. and we see that a lot, especially in late diagnosed women with ADHD.

That is a very, very common phenomenon of just I have no idea what I like. I have no idea what I want because I’ve spent my entire life trying to just impress and, keep the people who are around me, around me by becoming what I think they want me to be. that can be a really hard part of the process when you get an ADHD diagnosis is realizing that you may not even know what type of friends you want or what type of relationships you want to feel fulfilled.

I think a really good opportunity to introduce a new term. Friction can come in a friendship where you might think your ADHD friend is Mrs. Masling, um, when in fact what they’re doing is actually called anecdotal communication.

it’s a communication style whereby basically if somebody’s telling you a story where they fell off their bike and you go, oh, I also fell off my bike last week. Sometimes that can [00:22:00] seem like you are trying to take the conversation from them and take the focus over to you and your new story that you’re now telling.

where in fact a lot of people with ADHD, that’s just their way of connecting with the person who’s talking. you fall off your bike, oh my gosh, I also fell off my bike last week. please continue. I understand exactly what that feels like. Please go on. and that can create a lot of friction if the person who’s doing talking doesn’t know what an anecdotal communication is and thinks they’re trying to take the conversation.

I’ve seen a lot of, tension build in friendships, both my own friendships and friendships I’ve seen in others. because one person communicates anecdotally, they just love saying, oh yeah, I did that too. And the other person takes it as them trying to take the focus when really that’s not what’s happening.

Nina: That’s so important and I want more examples like that. ’cause then I want us to get to how do we talk to friends about these things. are there any other examples that you think might be helpful for listeners that are just like this? One thing I just want to get to is the rejection piece. I think that that is so huge. And can you say the term again? I.

Cate and Erik: Rejection sensitivity is a really [00:23:00] interesting term that we use in the ADHD community because it is not an official diagnosis. It is not something that you will see in the DSM, but for many, many people with ADHD, it is a. Lived experience. fundamentally what rejection sensitivity is, is a trauma response, a gut reaction, however you want to think about it, to the experience of rejection.

But this is pivotal real or perceived. The rejection doesn’t need to actually be happening in order for us to feel that gut reaction. and where that reaction comes from is that for many people with ADHD, many neurodivergent people as a whole, regardless of diagnosis, we hear a lot of negative messaging about ourselves throughout our lifetimes.

in fact, they studied it and supposedly kids with ADHD received 10,000 more negative comments about themselves by the time they’re like 11 years old or something wild. we start to internalize this idea that, oh, we are too loud, we are too [00:24:00] much, we are too excited. we need to sit still.

We need to do all of these things that we are told we are doing wrong or bad, or have been called out as differently. And so the idea of criticism, the idea that surely I must be doing something wrong right now, just existing as I am, becomes a very familiar thought pattern in the brain of many people with ADHD.

so what starts happening is that people pleasing, that chameleon, that becoming. I just want to make sure that I’m not going to upset you. I don’t want to make you upset or angry or mad, so I’m going to do whatever it takes. I’m going to say whatever it takes in order to keep you happy and hopefully comfortable and hopefully my friend, because I’m also neurodivergent and I struggle with emotional dysregulation and I struggle with, big emotions and processing them.

also fighting can feel really scary and really hard to do. and so rejection sensitivity compounds and compounds and compounds. real or perceived. So sometimes it might be, oh, no, my friend is actually mad at me. And sometimes [00:25:00] that reaction might come from my friend ended a text message with a period instead of an exclamation point.

Like it is not a logical process, but rejection sensitivity informs a lot of how we make interpersonal connections. it informs how we enter and exit relationships across our lives. and so it’s a really important thing to be aware of. It is also very important to be aware of the fact that rejection sensitivity is a thought pattern that you can unlearn.

It is an interruptible moment of, is this what I’m telling myself actually true? Or is this something that my brain is telling me in order to protect me from the uncomfortable feeling of rejection? it is something that you can absolutely work on. It is something that can absolutely be improved.

but it is very, very difficult because many people don’t even know that it’s a thing. They just know that they feel this way, but they don’t know that it has a name. They don’t know that there’s a lot of people feeling the exact same way. [00:26:00] And so then they also don’t know that there’s something that they can do about it.

Nina: I would love to hear some of the strategies that come into play. I’m thinking back to Erik’s example, which I thought was so good about, for some people it is performing back to the conversation style, and for some people, like you said, this is how they connect. That is a point of connection. You said an anecdote.

I’m telling you a similar anecdote just to let you know, I hear you. I’m listening. I can see why. Cause you’re trying to let the person know, I care about you and this story so much that I’m going to give you an example and you’re not trying to perform or interrupt or make it about yourself.

So like, now we’re at an impasse in this friendship a little bit. That’s how you communicate both people might be taking it as rejection actually,

in this case. How do people work on that particular thing? ’cause it comes up in my show all the time. It comes up with people who write to me that the assumption that people don’t like them, these difficult conversations with friends.

but like you’re saying, Cate, first it starts with yourself. you first have to override the assumptions that you think people have about you.

Cate and Erik: I experienced really [00:27:00] bad RSD up until I was about 20, 23, 22, 23. I was obsessed with what I believed other people thought about me and I believed they were thinking about me all the time. then my life kind of blew up. It’s a long story perhaps for another book.

but I was experiencing homelessness. I had no place to stay. I had $8 and I was deciding whether or not to buy food or a blanket. so like I really had nothing. in that moment I kind of realized what were the imagined or real accolades or derision of other people really worth.

If this is where it all led me, like what did that really do for me? and that’s when I sort of decided like, oh, there’s something going on. My obsession with what I believe other people are thinking about me is not good. It’s, well, it’s not that it’s not good. I mean it isn’t, but it’s not what I wanted out of my life.

I didn’t want to spend the, you know, let’s say I were to live another 70 years. Like I don’t want to spend 70 years just wondering if people are thinking mean things about me. that’s no way to live. so when I decided to start working [00:28:00] on it, one of the main thoughts that is just a really nice, digestible quote that I try to say to myself all the time.

it’s an Eleanor Roosevelt quote, I think it’s in the book. she says, you wouldn’t care nearly as much about what people thought of you if you realized how seldom they do.

Nina: Yes, that was in the book and, and a little graphic. I loved

Cate and Erik: Was it? Yeah. People aren’t thinking about you. They’re thinking about their day, they’re thinking about other people thinking about them.

They’re worried about whatever’s going on in their lives. They’re not thinking about you, almost certainly. And then two was,

when I’m trying to get out of a negative habit, that involves a negative sense of self-worth. It’s really hard to get outta that habit by just saying, over and over, you do have worth. You are good. You do have worth, and you are good. That is true, but in those moments, it’s hard to use that to pull yourself out of something.

What helps me in those moments is just cold objectivity, because I can’t deny that even when I’m in the worst pits of self-loathing or RSD, I can’t deny certain objective things. One, [00:29:00] namely. I don’t know what other people are thinking. I genuinely don’t. I literally just don’t know. So I could tell myself, oh, everybody’s thinking wonderful thoughts about me.

Everybody who walks by is thinking, man, what a cool looking guy. That feels ridiculous, doesn’t it? To think that everybody’s obsessed with you and thinking about how cool you are all the time, that’s kind of ridiculous. It’s also ridiculous to assume everybody’s always thinking about you and thinking negative things.

They’re

both equally untrue things,

Nina: That’s a great tip. Seriously, it’s like a very practical, useful thing.

Cate and Erik: So in my head I was sort of like, if I’m going to assume people are thinking about me all the time, I might as well assume they’re thinking good things about me all the time. which felt kind of silly ’cause it forced me to acknowledge the reality that I don’t know what’s going on inside other people’s heads.

I just don’t. the more I internalized that, that reality, that I genuinely don’t know what’s going on in another person’s head, the easier it was to stop caring. ‘ cause it’s an unknown variable now. I don’t know, maybe they’re thinking something cool, maybe they’re not, but I know that I’m going to go home and make a sandwich, there [00:30:00] are certain practical realities and there are certain unknown unknowns and uh, you kind of just gotta learn to let those go. But that’s what helped me.

One of the most challenging pieces of this is that a lot of times when we hear this conversation, what people will take away is, oh, you expect me to just magically fix my thinking.

that’s not helpful at all. and so another component that I really feel like is important to talk about is the way that our brains process information is also different. our brains are always looking for novel stimulation. They’re always looking for like dopamine anywhere. for a lot of people, uh, especially if you are a person who struggles with direction sensitivity or self-esteem or that kind of thing, a really fun thing that your brain can do is start using thoughts like that as a worry stone.

It becomes this idea of everybody’s mad at me. Everybody’s thinking negative things about me, whatever that isn’t true. it is not happening. But what your brain starts doing is going, man, I don’t have anything to think about, so I might as well think about this terrible thing because [00:31:00] that terrible thing is going to then elicit some kind of emotional reaction, and that’s going to feel some time away.

And now something interesting is happening inside of my head. And that is super, super, super common for people, with ADHD to wind up doing that unconsciously. that just idea of that worry stone thought, that worry stone process of maybe, if I think about every single bad thing that I’ve ever done, I can, you know, if I replay the hits in my head that’s just your brain worry stoning.

and so it’s not a magical process of just turn it off, just flip the switch and you’ll be completely done and you’ll be completely cured of your RSD. that’s not what we are saying. but any moment that you have to sort of interrupt that thought process, interrupt that thought pattern with those thoughts of well, are they though, are they though, is my friendship really predicated on a period versus an exclamation point?

Are they going to throw away 10 years of friendship because I forgot to put the heart emoji at the end of the text? you can really start [00:32:00] interrogating and really start questioning what is true, what is real? And then from there, start noticing those moments of, oh, and now I’m worry stoning about it because My brain is bored and it needs something bad to think about.

Nina: that’s important. Self-awareness. it reminds me, we haven’t even talked about, and it’s a big part of the book, so people who really want to go even deeper, need to read the book, but where does medication fit into all this? In terms of the friendship piece, the relationship piece, is this something you talk about with friends? , How much do you discuss all that?

Cate and Erik: I mean, most of my friends have ADHD, so we all talk about our meds constantly, all the time.

Nina: brought up meds here. ’cause I was thinking with that constant worrying, would the meds help with that?

Cate and Erik: Yeah, sure. I, uh, I’m going to do my best to not go, I love explaining the mechanics of how ADHD medications work, so I’m going to try to not go super deep,

Nina: Well, I think my listeners would be interested, you know, to a point, right.

Cate and Erik: to a point. Sure. well, basically, stimulant, ADHD medications are the most common class of ADHD medications, so, we’ll, let’s talk about those.

what stimulant medications for ADHD do is [00:33:00] they raise the amount of tonic dopamine in your brain. let’s talk about dopamine for a second. so in your brain, at any given time, if you were to just sort of measure the amount of dopamine active in your brain between your neurotransmitters, um, we would call that your tonic dopamine.

Just what is your baseline dopamine level? But your brain also gets little bursts of dopamine when new things happen. I don’t mean good things, I mean new things. since people with ADHD have low tonic dopamine, our brain is constantly searching for new things, to give those little bursts of what’s called phasic dopamine to get our baseline dopamine back where it’s supposed to be.

It’s important to distinguish that tonic dopamine and phasic dopamine. It’s the same molecule, it’s just a description based on when they’re released. So the way that stimulant medications work is basically by increasing the amount of tonic dopamine in your brain, either by increasing the rate at which your brain excretes it or decreasing the rate at which it takes it back up. what medication can do is essentially make that craving for [00:34:00] newness that second to second, what’s going on, what’s going on, just a bit quieter.

A phrase that’s really important I think when it comes to ADHD is pills don’t teach skills.

pills will alter the way that your brain is behaving, chemically speaking, but it won’t teach you to write stuff down when you know your friend says an important date. I think it can be very beneficial to talk about medication because it will change how your brain sort of behaves by default, and then that layered with strategies and systems to make yourself more reliable, interrupt people less, whatever behavior you’re trying to change. So anyways, I think it’s really important to, think about talking about your medication with the people in your life. ’cause it will change the way that your brain is behaving on a chemical level. but that I think, matched with deliberate practice of new systems and strategies, is really where the money is when it comes to managing your ADHD.

Nina: Where are people learning skills? Let’s say someone’s hearing this and they’ve already, because of the messages out there and like, you’re right, it is become a, more common topic probably from 2020 to now. I’m seeing this too anecdotally, like women are [00:35:00] starting to get diagnosed more, so, okay. You think you might fall under this diagnosis and that maybe you could really use some coaching and training on system. Like where are people going for this?

Cate and Erik: It really kind of depends on the type of information that works best for you. you could buy our book if

Nina: Yes. Obviously I.

Cate and Erik: the real truth is that our book sought to do something else, when it comes to systems and structures because one of the things that many, many books with ADHD tend to sort of fall into the trap of is stuff like, have you considered getting a planner?

And it’s like, if you have ADHD, that is the least useful piece of feedback that you will ever get in your entire life. And very quickly we realized that what most people don’t have is the ability to create systems and structures for themselves. We go online, we look at like top 10 best tips to work with your A DH, ADHD or whatever.

And those might be great, those might be the exact 10 tips that you need. But oftentimes when [00:36:00] you know one person with ADHD, you know, one person with ADHD, and we all have different strengths and weaknesses, we all have different values, we all have different core beliefs. for one person with ADHD, they might be amazing at being on time because being on time was culturally very important to them.

And they were raised in a household where being on time was a priority. And so unconsciously they built systems and structures that most of the time, helps them to be on time. There might be other people with ADHD who really struggle with the time perception part of it, and they need better systems and structures.

what we sought to do in the book was to give people the knowledge and the information to build a system for themselves. What do I personally need? Because what Cate needs, what Erik needs, doesn’t matter. I can tell you what works for me and maybe it will work for you. But what actually functionally matters at the end of the day is that you have a system that works for you in the way that you live your life with your special [00:37:00] soup of ADHD and whatever comorbidities that you have.

And a person with ADHD and depression is going to operate very differently than a person with ADHD and depression and anxiety and or OCD and or, you know, like you just start stacking the comorbidities. The real truth is that so many people come to us and they say what should I do about this?

And my question is always like, well, what do you need? where is the sticking point? where are the issues that you’re having? And then what is the easiest, most natural step out of that? Right? I lose my keys sometimes the system is just as simple as have you put a bowl on your counter?

That can feel like, have you thought about getting a planner? That can feel incredibly insulting, But for some people, the action of tossing the keys into the bowl, doesn’t work because maybe their house isn’t set up like that. Or maybe they need them at eye level. And so like, yeah, I put ’em in the bowl, but then I forget to take them with me because if they’re not at eye level, so, okay, have you tried a hook?

And so it becomes exploring these minuscule moments, of each individual task that it takes you to get to [00:38:00] a specific accomplishment, which is, I always know where my keys are. and building for your own personal needs.

I think ultimately, there’s a lot of tricks and tips and all that kind of stuff all over TikTok and the internet at large, and that’s great. But ultimately, tools are only useful if you know what problems you’re trying to solve with them.

Nina: that’s important.

Cate and Erik: and if you care to solve them.

Yeah. Yeah. if a person tries to manage and really get a hold on every single ADHD symptom in their life, they’re going to burn themselves out. There’s just no way. so you have to become a student of your own behavior and a student of your own mind and pay attention to the ways ADHD is negatively affecting your life and your relationships in what ways?

And then prioritize from there, which is something we really struggle with. What am I going to deal with? So it’s really about investigating those types of situations and figuring out what you can tweak and what you care to make better.

And that’s the. direct one-to-one when we talk about friendships

because part of [00:39:00] existing in a, body and brain with ADHD is that there are systems and structures that we need to utilize in order to not forget that our friends exist and, to be good friends and to show up on time and all of those different things.

a lot of times the systems that we use are also the things that will get the most judgment. I’ve talked very publicly at length about the fact that I have a friendship calendar and every day on my friendship calendar I get a little notification that says, Hey, uh, today you’re going to text your friend Taylor or whoever and I’m going to check in on Taylor and see how Taylor is doing.

And I have that set up so I can maintain my relationships and I’m very proud of it ’cause that is a system that I built and.

Nina: Brilliant. Just so you know, I approve a thousand percent.

Cate and Erik: But what is very interesting is that every time I talk about that very publicly, I get a lot of comments, a lot of mean comments like, what are you, some kind of sociopath you have to remember to text your friends.

You’re a terrible friend. That’s if I found out that my friends kept me on some kind of list [00:40:00] and they would forget that I exist otherwise I wouldn’t even want that person in my life. That’s disgusting. That’s terrible. And I hear that every single time I talk

like this is,

Nina: I am shocked that you get feedback. Like, to be honest, I think it so clearly shows that you care about the person, period.

Cate and Erik: that’s it. Right? that’s part of it first off, you have to remember that most people in the comment section are like 14 years

Nina: Yeah. So true.

Cate and Erik: but the other thing is just realizing that shame narratives, guilt narratives around friendships, around interpersonal connections are useless because those people do not know what it is like to exist in my body.

They do not understand how many friendships I have lost simply by realizing, oh my God, it’s been nine months since I texted this person who was very dear to me. And the amount of guilt and shame that I carry around that and, and how I think about myself and all of the times that has happened to me in my life that has profoundly affected me.

And so my system of, it’s the third Thursday of the month, I’m going to text my friend Kelly. [00:41:00] That is what keeps those people in my life. That is what keeps those meaningful relationships happening. if I allow that outside, shame that outside judgment to pollute that that is not useful for me because I’m letting go of a system that really does work because of the opinions of other people.

But because so much of Neurodivergence is about navigating the external. People don’t know what it is like to exist as us internally, and they can only see the external symptoms, they only see the interrupting. They only see the fidgeting. They only see the hyperactivity, they don’t know what the rest of it is like.

one of, I think the most challenging things about being neurodivergent is that you really have to learn how to divest that judgment and that external view away from yourself. And that can be honestly, the hardest part. The hardest part of the whole thing is

that.

Nina: We’ve hit on something actually really important here . A lot of the episodes plus a lot of what gets talked about in my Facebook [00:42:00] community, my own one, that’s all about friendship. And people write in anonymous questions all the time.

I am telling you, a majority comes down to something like my friend never reaches out. And I want listeners to like hear this. Please. Sometimes when someone doesn’t reach out to you, it is for other reasons than all of the rejection concepts that we all have,

neurotypical or not. there’s a lot of rejection fear, I want everyone to hear that

there may be situations where someone doesn’t reach out because they have not developed a system like yours.

It, it really might be.

Cate and Erik: Well, I also just a, quick little thing for any listener who might be thinking that, I’ve heard this experience echoed in so many people over the years. That if you don’t keep up with somebody for a certain amount of time, you know, six months or something, you feel so bad that you didn’t reach out to them, that you push it further away.

Yeah. Because now you can’t just say, Hey, what’s up? You have to say, Hey, sorry I haven’t messaged you in so long. So it becomes this like

spiral of now they are remembering to message you, but they feel so [00:43:00] ashamed that they didn’t, that they’re afraid to now. so it becomes this whole thing. So anyway, I just want to anybody who might be thinking that

might be happening with a friend, they might be there too.

that to me is really interesting, Nina. ’cause well, I’m always the person who reaches out or is such a common. Thing is

Nina: Very

Cate and Erik: narrative, and it’s one that genuinely I struggle with as well because in some of my friendship groups, I am the person keeping the group chat alive. In other friendship groups I am never the person who calls them, they always call me. if that is a value that you hold, that you want friends who are going to reach out. Do you know Nina, the number one best way to make sure that your friends are people who reach out? You ask them for it. You ask, you say with your big kid words, Hey, it is really important to me that I’m not always the person who reaches out.

It makes me feel like I’m carrying the weight of this friendship You are allowed [00:44:00] to ask for what you want in friendships. It is wild to me how often then the response is, well, I can never have a conversation.

Like, that’s so awkward. I don’t want to have to ask, I don’t want to have to ask for my friends to care about me. But it’s, no, you’re not asking for that person to care about you or to invest in the relationship. What you are saying is you are addressing the need of, part of my feeling safe and secure in this relationship is simply feeling like I’m a thought, which is why I have a calendar.

that’s my thing on like all the work that I do and on my show and everything is the well, I don’t want to have to have a conversation like that because it seems fake and weird and false and, and whatever. I’m like, no. Asking for what you want is a gift. You are

giving your friends. You’re giving the people in your life the opportunity to meet you where they are. And if they can’t for whatever reason, then that is more information. Erik always likes to talk about data. that is more data that you get about, okay, is this person someone who I can have a meaningful [00:45:00] friendship with?

But if you’re just harboring resentment because they’re never the first person to call you, but you’ve never brought it up, you’ve never talked about it, how are they supposed to know? Because again, we do not know what other people are thinking, we are not mind readers. And in any relationship, there’s no amount of mind reading that can get done.

I think so much of everything is just based around the complete lack of communication skills in our society.

Nina: exactly right and I often say, I’m sure you guys will agree on this topic and a lot of topics do not test your friends. why are you testing your friend? Your friend has already shown maybe that there’s somebody who maybe doesn’t need to communicate as much, so they’re not going to reach out to you as much.

Maybe they just don’t have that kind of social life. You might need that from them. But like you’re saying, if you don’t say it, yeah, they’re going to fail that test. They’ve already shown you. why are we testing our friends? If you feel like you have to test your friend, you’ve already missed the communication window.

Most people will fail the test because if you don’t do that, unless you already suspect, oh, if I don’t reach out, we will never speak again. Some people don’t reach out as much. they don’t have that as a value and they don’t need to be in touch as [00:46:00] much,

so they’re not going to reach out as much and yeah, they’re going to fail the test.

Cate and Erik: And that self-monitoring element as well. I love talking about getting curious. If you have that friend who you’re frustrated with, because they never call you and you always call them, sometimes it can just be a question. It’s, Hey, have you noticed that? I always call you.

Are you not like a phone call person? Is there like a good time where like maybe like we could schedule something where you call me? You’re allowed to ask questions and you’re allowed to get clarity on those things. And it may just be that your friend goes, oh well yeah, you always call me.

So like, I just figured I’m going to hear from you no matter what because you call me every day or you know, whatever. In a way it can become a strange little litmus test, for who you really want to be friends with.

like I am not a texter and I am especially not a group text. Oh my gosh. So if I am, let’s say meeting a new group of friends or a new individual friend and they’re a big texter, I come out right in the beginning yo, I am not a texter. You could text me all you want. I don’t mind receiving text messages.

That doesn’t bother me at [00:47:00] all. But the homework of having to respond to you right now, no matter what I’m doing, like that’s just, no, I’m not going to do that. So I communicate to people that I meet really early on like, Hey, just so you know, my lack of a timely text response has nothing to do with how I feel about you.

It’s just the way that I am. I just don’t do it. if people are really not okay with that, if they’re a big time texter and they can’t separate the texting part of me from the real person, me, then we probably wouldn’t make really good friends. I mean, we could get along, we’d be good acquaintances and all that stuff, but a really close, intimate friendship, probably not.

I think when you are upfront about those types of things, about the way that you give and receive affection, the way that you express gratitude, the frequency of communications that you expect or are willing to give, when you nail those things out, you are saving yourself a lot of work later, ultimately.

because if a person is going to be mad at you and you don’t respond immediately every time, if you don’t talk about that, that person’s going to be mad at you for like a [00:48:00] year or something before, eventually you get into a fight and you decide you shouldn’t be friends or whatever happens. But by doing it upfront, it’s one massively efficient.

but two, you’re, going to end up with more meaty friendships. You’re going to spend less time talking about trivial things and more time talking about interesting friendship things, the reason you’re actually friends with them. those conversations can be kind of awkward, but you kinda just gotta embrace it. You know, think of it like, reps with weights.

Every time you have an awkward conversation, good, you had one more awkward conversation, you’re better at having awkward conversations because

they’re so necessary.

Nina: And you hit on something so important, Not everybody has to be friends. you may actually find, this one’s a huge texter. they don’t want to talk on the phone. They don’t even want to get together in person.

They really only really want to text a lot. it may be that these two people, you and this imaginary friend or anybody. is okay for the answer to sometimes be, and it’s, people really struggle with this. We actually aren’t a match. We actually cannot be close with everybody anyway. So sometimes we do have to discern who is a, match for us and who isn’t? And you can communicate all of your needs and hear all of [00:49:00] their needs. And you may find that the needs aren’t going to work. This is where friends are different than family. you don’t have to make it work at all costs. You don’t,

Cate and Erik: there is such a interesting phenomenon that happens in the neurodivergent community and I don’t want to say like every single person does this ’cause it’s certainly not true. but people tend to go two different ways because so much of the lived experience of people who are neurodivergent is often feeling like.

They are broken, or there’s like an embarrassment, there’s a shame, there’s an internalized guilt. There’s all of these different things, and sometimes it goes in like two very different directions. The first direction is I want to be friends with every single person that I meet, because I don’t want any of those people to feel rejected, to feel lonely, to feel broken.

There’s something inherently wrong with them.

And there is such an inherent kindness in that. But sometimes what can happen is that then we wind up overextended and we’re not really being the best friend that we possibly can be, because how do you keep track of 5,000 people [00:50:00] in your texting calendar or whatever it may be. But the other thing that also happens that is heartbreaking is that sometimes we start to believe the messaging that we’re not lovable or that we’re not good enough, or that we’re not a good friend or a good person. And so we don’t seek out new connections. We isolate, and we build these walls up in order to protect ourselves from getting hurt and feeling that rejection.

That is obviously detrimental in its own way. one of the biggest parts about navigating all of it is realizing at the end of the day that you are a person who is worthy of love. You are not broken. You are born with a brain and a body that works differently than other people’s.

the first step is just radically accepting that and saying, okay, if that is true, then what do I need in order to show up the best in my friendships, in my relationships? What do I need in order to have fulfilling meaningful conversations and [00:51:00] friendships? what do those look like for me?

Because I’m not a bad person for needing something different than the person sitting next to me.

Nina: That’s beautifully said. Is there any, other last thing Erik, you wanted to add? If you don’t have ADHD, what do you want those people to hear about their friends about friendship.

Cate and Erik: what I want to express is, essentially that a person with a D’S intentions and their behavior are often vastly disparate things. if you say an important date to a person with ADHD, their likelihood of remembering that date has nothing to do with how important they believe it to be by default.

They can develop systems and strategies, over the years going, oh, I, that my friend just said an important date. I gotta go write that down, or else I’ll forget which you should do. But the just default operations of our brains, what we remember has nothing to do with how important we believe it to be.

how often we talk to you has nothing to do with how much we like you. we are very much so rooted in out of sight, out of mind. so I guess just know that person with ADHD is capable of betraying [00:52:00] themselves, quite frequently., They may really want to reach out to you more often than they do, but for some executive dysfunction reason, they don’t. They might really want to hang out with you and spend time with you, but they have such a hard time understanding perspective time, two weeks in the future that they can’t even wrap their head around the idea of planning something two weeks ahead in the future.

So just know that a person with a’s intentions are not always reflected in their behavior. Sprinkle some patience on that, have some compassion for them. but also, they’re an adult presumably, so you can expect them to do better, but be patient with them while they try.

Nina: I think that’s great. And Cate, you really already answered what was my other question was what, what does the person with ADHD need to hear, I think you addressed that, but if there was anything you wanted to add, feel

Cate and Erik: Yeah. it’s just, I mean, a little bit of what I already said, and then just adding on to Erik’s is, is that, we also have a responsibility to show up. We also have a responsibility to make sure that we are acting in good faith with compassion. And we’re not just saying, oh, it’s my a DH adhd. I can’t [00:53:00] possibly be on time and I have to interrupt and, and whatever, because that’s not, again, how you, form lasting meaningful friendships. There has to be a give and take. While it is totally valid to struggle, a DH ADHD has a hundred percent failure rate, right? There’s always going to be the day where something happens and you do lose your keys or you are running late, or you do accidentally interrupt at the worst possible moment in the important business meeting.

in those moments, giving yourself grace and compassion and patience like Erik said, and then also critically thinking about those systems and the structures that you’re using and saying, okay, what broke down there? what can I get curious about to make sure that maybe next time that doesn’t happen? There probably will be another time. But yeah, just making sure that you’re not foisting off responsibility onto the people around you, because ultimately we do have to be responsible for ourselves.

Nina: you guys. Thank you so much for, writing the book. talking to me of course. it’s helpful, like I said to people on both ends of this equation and on my show because we talk about friendship so much , [00:54:00] it is one of the most important parts of life.

And so if this is something that’s getting in the way, I hope, this book will help people out there and the episode. I just wish the most of you luck and getting that message out there more and more and more.

Cate and Erik: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, thank you so much.

Nina: listeners, come back next week when our friendships are going well. We are happier all around.

Cate and Erik: Bye.